Monday 1 June 2009

Speaking from Experience Evaluation Tiiime...

1. What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

During this project, I feel the main skill I have developed is the use of my sketchbook. Throughout the year I have had a continuous debate with myself whether to use mainly worksheets or mainly sketchbooks and I think I have finally found a balance between the two; I don’t know if this would specifically be called a skill but I personally feel it is.
In terms of practical skills, I have enjoyed hand drawing things a lot more. Although I have then taken my drawings into photoshop and illustrator, I did a lot more hand drawn experiments than I have done before. I feel the main reason for this has been because I always felt the other illustrators etc. in our year were better than me, but then I realised, we all work in different ways and can use our own skills to our advantage. I really think this has benefit my work as I felt more involved with it.
Another skill I feel I have developed is my use of photoshop and illustrator; specifically layers in photoshop and I definately feel more confident with using them now to create a more visually engaging image. I have always been somewhat confident in illustrator, just in terms of creating a vector outline so I simply furthered this in this project.

2. What approaches to/methods of research have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

Although Graphics is obviously a visual subject, I do like to have written research as well as visuals because it gives me a better understanding of the subject I am working with and therefore making me more confident with the decisions I make. However, within this brief I have done a lot more visual research than I have done before, mainly because of the PPD sessions and I didn’t realise how much it would help. Looking at such a variety of contemporary examples of graphic design helped with my decision making; looking back, although I did more than I have done before I wish I had done even more and used it all in a much more effective way as I seemed to forget about it at some points. In the second you I hope to continue the successful research aspect of my work.

3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?

Within this brief I feel my main strength is my hand-drawn type, I know that if I work with this more it will become better but because this is my first real use of hand-drawn things, I feel it is strong. Another strength is my use of textures and patterns to create a better visual quality for illustrations and type, this was inspired by visual research and I think I used it to my advantage.
Although the following strength is not a practical one, it is still important to me, and it is, as already mentioned, the use of a sketchbook. I had two at the same time, one which I would just sketch and draw things in and the other to write down decisions etc. I definately felt more involved with them by using 2 different ones, as I didn’t keep consciously thinking “should this go in my sketchbook...or just throw it away?” This also benefit me in terms of evidencing the work that I did and showed that it didn’t come from nowhere. In the Second year, I hope to capitilise on these strengths in my work.

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully?

For this brief in particular, this question is the most important to me as in my opinion some of the decisions I have made have let my work down and by addressing them here I hope not to make these mistakes again. I am not going to say ‘time management’ was my weakness, I think prioritising and speed has been the main issue. Although this brief was the same length of time as the book brief, I seemed to subconciously think there was a lot more time for this one. I felt like I was always doing the work, but working so slowly that I got a lot less done than I know that I could have done in that time and therefore when it came to near the end, I had to work a lot faster than I have done before and produce all the work that I wanted to, but not to standard that I would have liked. In future, I want to have a more organised way of structuring my time and set realistic deadlines for myself throughout a brief.
Another area I feel is a weakness is my ongoing evaluation; I do the work, think about it and evaluate it in my head but by not writing them all down I don’t have evidence of all the decisions I made.
In the second year, I hope to work hard on overcoming these weaknesess as soon as possible.

5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

1 - Write more lists with deadlines of them and hopefully stick to them - I won’t be as stressed at the end of a brief.
2 - Keep more up-to-date with my blog - I don’t have to do it all at the end.
3 - Evaluate work more effectively - evidence my decisions.
4 - Experiment more - will have a more successful outcome.
5 - Organise work better - I seemed to have so many files on my laptop referring to this brief and related work was all in different files, being more organised with this would have saved some time.

6.How would you grade yourself on the following areas:

Attendance - 5...
Punctuality - 5
Motivation - 3
Commitment - 3
Quantity of work produced - 3
Quality of work produced - 4
Contribution to the group - 3

Bring on the Second Year.
x

The end.

My final box...
I'm not gonna lie, I'm not exactly over-joyed with it.
I think I could have done better, but this will be addressed in my evaluation...

^
The Box.

^
The Stressball.


^
Mr Motivator Mascot.


^
Sweets - Extrinsic Motivation.

^
Motivational CD

^
The Poster.


^
Front of Wall Planner.


^
Back of Wallplanner (The Quote.)

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Stickers.

Stickers...
For 'their' own uses. Mr Motivator stickers, woo.
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Don't be fooled...

As I am having a wallplanner in my pack, I wanted to include an appropriate quote. My plan is to have 12 seperate pieces with a seperate month on each, going from september to july and having a 'to do...' piece of paper at the end.

Don't be fooled by the calender, there are only as many days in the year as you make use of :)

I intend to take these into illustrator to make them tidier etc.
x

The Poster...

Using some of my hand-drawn type, I put a poster together...and I wanted to keep the same 'visual appearance' as the rest of the items in the pack...
1.

2.

3.

Using some different patterns and textures that I scanned I gave it a more interesting visual quality...
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Sunday 31 May 2009

Mr. Motivator...

Motivational Mascot...
Is there anyone better? :o

Mr Motivator!

Traced...Scanned...Illustrated...
x

Changggge

Well. Even though I loved my first logo, I figured that the type I used didn't really work with the theme of the rest of my project...so I changed it to a more 'rough', hand-drawn looking type.
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Time!

Moved on a lot at this point...
I felt I needed to tackle the issue of branding. Although its not exactly a campaign or anything that I am doing, I need there to be some sort of logo so that you can identify that all that the things in my pack go together.

After many sketchs and scans etc. I came up with this...

...which I am very happy with.
I then thought it would look good all cut out/like a stencil.
Although I am really happy with the outcome of this...
I don't actually know what I can do with this? I love it but, with the amount of time that it took...it may prove to be pointless, which is annoying.
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First proposal boards

For the first crit of the brief I put together 2 proposal boards because I felt it was the most successful way of saying what I wanted.



Self explanatory really...
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Tuesday 12 May 2009

Change of Plan...

Sooo...

My original plan was 'to motivate students to get more involved in group work', But I had a change of plan mainly based on last weeks crit because someone said they weren't sure what the problem was...(Even though on one of my boards, in capital letters, bright red writing, about 48 pt size...it said what I aimed to do etc...lol.)

Anywhooooo, I thought that gave me a chance to re-direct my project slightly, to "Encourage students to motivate themselves to do work outside college"...i.e. carry on doing college work at home.

I Guess it is based around time management...but I didn't want to write that because I hate the phrase.

So! Off we go, fun fun fun.
x

Friday 1 May 2009

Yes.

What did I used to be?

When I started the course I was pretty confident that I would just use photographs in pretty much everything I did and that I could never be good at illustration. I always thought that if I tried do illustration, it would make my work look bad because everyone was better than me at it. One thing I believed was that, I would get onto the course and everyone would already have their 'style'...while I didn't really have a clue, but i still didn't like experimenting out of my comfort zone. On a positive, I thought I was good(ish) on photoshop and illustrator, and this still stands true...I know enough to get me by; And, I've always loved words so I liked typography...

Where am I Now? 

I have become more confident with my own work, where I used to think everyone elses work was better than mine, even if I didn't really like theirs...I now know, everyone is good at different things, and likes different things. Its not a bad thing. Also, the fact I Knew I didn't have a style has benefit me because I have become more willing to work out of my comfort zone and I think this is what is making me like my work more. I still really like typography, but I am starting to enjoy illustration more because it doesn't all have to be the same style as everyone elses. So...I still don't know what I like best. One more thing is that I've learnt how much research can help, i've definately got better at this!

Where do I Intend to be?

- I want to experiment and become more confident with illustration.
- Become more aware of contemporary graphic design - more research into this.
- I want to generate more ideas or get better at generating ideas.

x

Thursday 30 April 2009

Cinco...

So...for our PPD session, we have been asked to find 5 examples of Graphic design that may influence our Speaking from experience brief.
Due to the fact I'm not set on one idea of what I want to do yet, I tried to find kind of diverse examples but all sticking around the idea of illustration as type...

Shaz Madani
I used this the last type that we needed 5 example of type...riiiiight near the beginning of the year. But I still like it, so why not use it again. I love crafty things and I Really like 3D lettering BUT having the 3D letters and photographing them.
Julien Vallee
Once again...my love of crafty things influences my choice for this one. The colour and style f type etc. are well suited to the audience - it was for mtv one, so its not exactly aimed at grandparents.
Matterbox
I chose this because I like the idea of using something like it to communicate with the audience. I like the simplicity of the packaging...maybe not the pale blue, but the crafting of it.

Mike Perry
I did have some examples from Hand Job...but then I forgot to bring my book and scan, but it was pretty similar to this just good examples of illustrative type.
Mr Bingo
At the moment I'm going through of phase of loving this stuff. But for this, its just another example of the style of illustration I would like to work with.
And...I can't believe that just by drawing hair I know who his "hair portraits" are of. Love it.

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Tuesday 28 April 2009

Speaking from experience...

So, after I looked at the first 5 problems that I started with...I decided they were a little bit boring and stuff. I just didn't really think any of them could keep me interested. Soo, I started again. I started thinking about the things that bothered me throughout the course...

What Problem?: I identified my problem as; not wanting to work with people i'm not friends with/people I don't necessarily know. This was definately something that bothered more at the beginning of the year than it does now.

What am I going to do about it?: In my work I aim to somewhat advise the audience or 'inform' them that its not as bad as you first think.

How will I do?: I want to work primarily with type, but not type like helvetica etc. more in terms of illustration as type because I think that would be more appropriate to the audience and it will just make it more interesting in general. I'm not 100% sure how I want it to be presented, I just know that...I don't really want to do a poster.

Lets go!
x




I can't believe how long I haven't posted for? wow.

Wednesday 1 April 2009

The End...

What is a line was handed in today...

Here are my final(?) resolutions,
I didn't know whether to say my animation or my patterns were my final resultions.

Animation:


Colour in Wallpaper/Wrapping paper :o
I coloured one of these in after I printed it and loved it :D I would love to have colour in wallpaper!
I could hve done so many different combinations, but lack of time etc. didn't help.

BUT Because I like them, I might do some for myself.

Below: I was simply experimenting with backgrounds, I think the polka dot one works quite well with the girly feel.



I need to sleep.x

Monday 23 March 2009

Hmm.

Well! I've got...100 photos of 100 things in my bedroom. 100 continuous line drawings of 100 things in my bedroom AND 100 scans of 100 continuous line drawings of 100 things in my bedroom :) Did you get all that? Lol.

Below is a really quick mock of a conveyor belt idea I was thinking of? I quite like the effect it has, but I need to make the images look a bit better? Possibly vectorise them. If not - then I need to make sure the line at the bottom connects on all of them.



In addition to this, I was toying with the idea of a border for a bedroom?
More specifically, a childrens bedroom, like a 'colour in border'.

Lovely jubbly.
Im happy.
x

The end is near!

What is a line...
Well, I haven't addressed much on here since my last crit where we got 5 questions from each person.

Some of the questions were quite...well, not Too useful but thankyou anyway.
Here are some of the questions I picked out -

Have you decided on a theme?
I have now! I needed a context and I was really sure what I could do, but I wanted something that I could produce quite a lot of, in...not a huge amount of time. I went for the idea of 100 things in my bedroom because: its personal to me, it has variety but still a context and its another form of line - my life line? The line that I live within?

Etch-a-sketch are quite hard to use, do you think you have enough time?
Short answer - No I don't.
For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to use etch-a-sketch and it would be quite easy but the more I thought about it, the more I remembered why I don't have an etch-a-sketch anymore. I probably broke it from throwing it. I didn't give myself enough time to master the art of etch-a-sketch. Shame.

Have you looked for etch-a-sketch generation programmes?
No - I hadn't, but then I did. And the one I found just backed up the fact that...it was quite an unreachable goal to think I could master using one And produce a body of work from it.
http://www.corporatedump.com/etchsketch.html < Thats the one I found, it really is good and fun! But I could never produce good work on it.



I'm not going to embarrass myself by putting up any of my shoddy attempts on here :D haha. It really it hards lol.

I think I'll stick to my hand drawings!

SO! Now that I've addressed this, I can move swiftly on and do what I need to do.

x

Thursday 19 March 2009

Well!

Its not HOW TO tell a lie convincingly...its TELL a lie convincingly. Duh...

Basically me and marc interpreted the brief wrong However...this isn't a negative thing!

The research that we have still counts, as does the rest of the work but the idea has completely changed. It probably couldn't be more different? haha. But to be fair, I think we're both glad that we've moved away from the first idea because neither of us were really satisfied with where it was going.

Feeling positive! x




Wednesday 18 March 2009

How To Lie Convincingly...

The New Collaboration Brief!

Sooo, I'm workin with Marc and we both decided to do the 'Tell a Lie Convincingly' task.
Not just tell a lie....tell a lie to your boss.
Therefore our audience is employee's.

Up to this point, i've done some research into how to tell lies without getting caught.
Here are some of the main points i've found:

- Lying is a form of story-telling.
- Avoid lying to people who know how you normally act.
- Its easier to lie to people you don't care about.
- Practicing your lie will make it more effective.
- The more details you use, the more likely it is that someone will believe you.
- The details must be rehearsed and memorised.
- Keep the details in your active memory for a reasonable period of time after you have told the lie.
- Include unverifiable details i.e. if you said that you had to go the dentist...say something like
'The dentists hands were so cold!'
- If you include people in your lie, make sure they know about it so they can back you up.
- Believe your own lie - the more you rationalise with the story, the more likely you are to convince yourself that you are telling the truth.
- Confidence is a good indicator that someone isn't lying.
- Don't over elaborate.
- Look the person, that you're lying to, in the eye but don't stare at them.
- Never forget what you lied about.
- Think about what questions the victim of your lie might ask you, next time you see them.
- Don't try to distract the person you're lying to.

More more more.x

Tuesday 17 March 2009

I'm done...

Playmaker - A guide to getting fully equipped for Ice Hockey.

Im really happy with the final piece, I sprayed the puck black and it gave it such a nice finish! Which I was surprised at considering it was a plastic glossy puck, I was worried it would run but it didn't :D
There are some things I could improve but....I'm more than happy with what I've done:-


All in all, there are 20 pieces of equipment, 18 slang ice hockey terms and an illustration of the ice hockey rink.

Suggested ways to improve it:-
- Use my typeface more - (I would have...but I didn't think it looked good enough)
- Put the label on the box better.

Moving on to the next thing!
x

The puck...

I got a puck off the internet because otherwise...I would have had to go to sheffield to the Ice Sheffield shop. Even though its bright orange, I wasn't too bothered because I thought - if i'm going to use it, I will be able to overcome this.

I thought it was going to be a solid, heavy puck, where I got it but it was actually hollow when I got it. At first I was annoyed but it turned out to work for the better for me!
I cut it in half and left a bit at the back like a hinge but I figured this would snap after a while so I just cut it in half completely and experimented with how I could attach the content.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to pursue the concetina/springy effect because it works well and it can be as long as I need it to be. Super duper.

x

I can't leave them alone!



This advert...the lines on his shirt. Grr, I love it.

I need TIME! But I don't have it lol.
x

Scribble...

SO! I traced pictures of all the equipment that you need to be a Ice Hockey player And Goalkeeper...
I then traced them all, increased the contrast so it was just black and white...and Live Traced them in illustrator so that I could have them any size I wanted.
I didn't want them to have a flat colour so what I did was scribble all over a piece of paper in pencil, took this into photoshop and produced the texture that the pencil created in various colours...after adding blocks of these colours to the illustrations I was Really happy with them!

You can't see the texture particularly well here, but it shows all of my illustrations...lovely jubbly.

In the mean time, I took the layout of the ice hockey rink into illustrator...Im sure I can use it somewhere! It also makes me laugh because the top and bottom look like faces with big lips haha.

x

Sticks and bits

Soooo, I have now decided that Im going to make a guide on how to get fully equipped...showing the equipment you need to wear but also incorporate some ice hockey terms because I found a Lot when I doing my research.
Now I know what Im doing...lets sort our How i'm going to do it.
I want to use a hockey puck because it gives them something to feel and...its a piece of the equipment!

I was looking into the type that I could use and I started playing around with Hockey sticks and pucks...
I came up with this:


I like it BUT I don't think i'll be able to use it a Lot because it might get confusing and illegible. But at least I have something to play with.

x

What is a line...lampost.

This took me a ridiculously Long time.
I thought the way I had done this one, would be So much quicker than my last one...I scanned one whole picture onto photoshop and just deleted little bits at a time. Butttt, it took ages and then when I put it together, its gone really bad quality. Grr.

ANYWAY! Here it is...and as we know, Im moving on here.



Moving on from here...I am looking at context.
Evidently, I didn't have any content really...It was like 'Im looking at structure erm...and building...and erm, construction and erm...interesting things'
WHAT? I thought that was good enough...but then I realised I was so confused I had no idea what to do.

In the latest crit, it was suggested that I look at multiples of things i.e. 100 cups.
I really liked this idea...so I am thinking of making it more personal to me and doing 100 things in my bedroom - connected by a line.

I still intend to look at the idea of etch-a-sketch but I haven't bought one...because also in the crit, someone mentioned an etch-a-sketch generation programme, which in fairness is going to be easier, quicker and I will probably be less likely to fail on that!

HERE WE GO! x

play LOUD

Due to the fact I don't really know anything Ice Hockey...or sport in general really, I wasn't really sure what direction to take it in, in terms of presentation etc.
I found a book in the library called Play Loud...its basically an illustration book based specifically on Football.
Obviously...football is not ice hockey, but it gave me an insight into the styles of illustration and ways of presenting things that are appropriate to the sport world.

Below are some example from the book that I liked most:

3 Deluxe : This captured my attention simply with the way it used the actual football to present to illustration...maybe I could use a puck or a hockey stick?!


Var - Against the Rest - This is similar to the 3 Deluxe design and there were actually quite a lot of things like this in the book but this shows how you could package it afterwards.


Anonimo studio - When flicking through the book at first, this was the first to really catch my eye. I thought the use of graph paper was good because it is quite instructional and structured and the fact it is green is even more appropriate - green grass, football. Hmm, blue and white graph paper could represent ice?!

Mitch Paone - I love the style of this; the stock, the colour, the type and style of illustration but I definately think it lends itself to a poster. I'm sure if I want to do a poster? But I still love it.

Sammy Stein - Hmm, girly football graphics! The use of colour to make it seem more feminine is cool because just by changing the colours to something like green and blue would automatically make it more masculine. I can't do illustrations like these...but i like them lol.

SemiTransparent Design - This is just simple, attractive and clean which is just what I like. I think it would work really well as a background if I was to do a poster with text over it. Mmm.

Visualdata - I've seen this kind of stuff Somewhere before...but I can't remember where? I thought it was an orange advert but I've got a feeling, I only think that because of the colour lol.
anyway! I really like it. I love Type so if I could use type to make image...that would be even better!


Lets get going! x

no. 893

How to...Get Fully Equipped for Ice Hockey!
Hmm!

At first I was like "What? I don't know Anything about Ice Hockey" but now i've realised...I quite like that fact!

The How To do Everything book basically told you all the protective equipment you need to safely play Ice Hockey and what order to put them on.

I don't really want to stray away from what the book is telling me to do because - if I was given this brief in industry and then I came back with something loosely related to subject, what are the chances of them saying 'Yes, do it!'? Lol...I would persume the chances aren't too high!

Anyway. Lets see where it goes from here!
x

Monday 16 March 2009

I heart Tea

I already like this better than the Fish and Chips one lol.

Again, It would look better if it was printed on sugar paper with an actual tea stain on it.

Moving on! x

Final Resolutions.

Sooo...the white paper was boring me and I wanted to make it look like it was on a t-shirt, but by the time I thought of that idea it was too late to do it...I thought of it just before the crit lol.

Anyway. I scanned some sugar paper to give it a nice textured background! I was going to try other things but I got kind of stuck on this.


Below is the final resolution that I submit...After doing so, I'm not that happy with it but I can make changes later for submission. In the final crit we decide that Fish and Chips was the most british thing I could do, its quite humorous and wouldn't look out of place on a students wall.

Ways to improve?...
- Actually print it on to sugar paper and scan again, to get the texture through the type.
- Print on newsprint and wrap up fish and chips in it.
- I heart Tea with a tea stain...just a little added detail.

Hmm.
x

Pure British.

I didn't want lots of type but I also wasn't sure on image...so I thought i would go with the tried and tested style of...I heart NY, the Milton Glaser classic.
Its recognisable with students and gives me the oppurtunity to do lots of variations to decided on the right one.

To think of British Stereotypes I looked at Martin Parr's book - Think Of England.
In all honesty, that was probably my biggest inspiration for the whole Pure British idea because I think this book is fabuloose! And some of the pictures are pretty funny!



This is just a collage of most of the basic ideas I had in terms of what british people 'heart'. Its not very clear but at the bottom of each one it says 'Pure British?' as if to say...'is this really what all british people are like?'

In the Crit when I put forward this idea, it was accepted well and they suggested that I should try putting the british flag inside the heart to make it 'less New York' and it communicates british-ness straight away.
I started experimenting with the Milton Glaser heart and I really like the above one because I felt that the scribbling of the pen was maybe still 'too' new york.

I decided to take the 'scribbling pen' idea and do the British heart. I thought it was going to look shocking but I actually quite like it.

Just do it!. x

Don't Panic!

First Brief of a new module!

I chose to do the Don't Panic brief; Communicate 'Pure' through an A2 Poster.

'Don't Panic Packs are distributed in independent shops, bars, universities, art spaces and outside alternative music events' - I got from this that my target audience would be Students.

I want it to be humorous...

At first I was completely lost on where to go with this. I've never had such difficulty in filling in a form on what I'm going to do etc. SO hard!

BUT! Then I was sat at home and looked at the term - Pure is unmixed, genuine - and the definition in the dictionary said 'descended from the original stock i.e. a genuine scotsman'.
Finally! An Idea!

PURE BRITISH!

I was going to look at Pure Student but after the crit where we had 30 possibly design treatments...I realised that was a bad idea!

Now what?
x

Tuesday 3 March 2009

3 Rules...

For What is a Line...

After the crit, im unsure about whether I wanted to use Etch-a-sketch now because there are more...and possibly better things I could do without buying one and finding out it doesn't work.

Here are my 3 Rules for What is a Line from now on:
1) Think of a context and Stick with it - Don't just do random things that look nice.
2) Try using different media - i.e. string.
3) Think about presentation - i.e. if I did decide to use etch-a-sketch, you can't save the work unless you photograph it.

Im not sure if these rules are exactly what was wanted but it will certain help me move forward.

x

Etch a Sketch



Advert for Mini...probably not actually done on an etch a sketch but it looks good.



George Vlosich
This man is Amazing.



Argos - Etch a Sketch - £12.69 :) Off I go!

x